Duke Back On Track, Routs Siu

Champs Sizzle In Midwest Blitz

March 19, 1993|By Skip Myslenski, College basketball writer.

The past week at Duke was given over to continual sessions of group therapy. They began last Friday after the Blue Devils lost their Atlantic Coast tourney opener to Georgia Tech and were summarily ripped by their own Bobby Hurley. This stage was known as, "We're not OK."

Then came the self-examining they did in various team meetings back in Durham. This stage was known as "Reawakening the inner self."

The final session was Wednesday when they arrived in Chicago and suddenly began declaring themselves ready to begin their quest for a third straight national title. This stage was known as, "We're OK."

Well, the third-seeded Blue Devils were certainly OK Thursday night at the Horizon, destroying 14th-seeded Southern Illinois 105-70 in the first round of the Midwest Regional. Their top scorers were Hurley with 25 points, guard Chris Collins with 16 and center Cherokee Parks with 15.

This one was effectively over with, oh, five minutes gone and Duke leading 14-4. Or maybe it wasn't really over until 10:23 remained in the first half, when it was 29-8. Most certainly it was over five minutes after that, when it was 40-17.

The Blue Devils were master chefs as they sliced and diced the Salukis and transformed them into puree. It was a classic mismatch, a heavyweight against a bantamweight, and there was just nothing Southern Illinois could construct that would stall the Duke wave.

The Blue Devils missed their first shot and fell behind 2-0. Then, in a stretch of 6:38, they hit their next 10 shots, getting field goals from seven players. The Salukis, in the same stretch, went 3 for 6 and committed five turnovers.

The Blue Devils played defense aggressively, with all the bloodlust of a hungry lion stalking a wounded prey. The Salukis had trouble playing any defense. They were so lax here that Collins, open on the right wing, once looked around in amazement before taking and nailing a three.

Former SIU (and Knicks) star Walt Frazier-he could not have rescued the Salukis. Doug Collins, whom Southern coach Rich Herrin had guided at Benton High-he could not have rescued his old mentor, either. Roberto Duran had the right words for this affair. "No mas, no mas."

Instead, as the half ended, Southern frosh forward Chris Carr dunked over Collins, and then stood over him and pointed and taunted Collins. Carr's team was then down 53-27.

"We're going in to see if we have a 25-point play," SIU assistant Ron Smith said more graciously on his way to the locker room.

The Salukis could find no such miracle, and after all the contractual obligations were fulfilled and this one mercifully ended, the relevant numbers were these. The Blue Devils had shot 63.2 percent overall, 73.7 percent (14 for 19) from three-point range.

"We got the first points of the game, and I thought we were OK," said Salukis senior guard Tyrone Bell. "But then we missed a couple of shots. We didn't shoot 'em, we aimed 'em. Then it started to snowball."

"If anyone questions where Duke is now," said Herrin, "they're very, very good and ready to defend their title."

"We're very proud we won two national championships," said Krzyzewski. "We believe this year we can be beaten by anyone in the tournament. But we also believe we can play with anyone in the tournament. We just want to make sure we play hard. If we're beaten, we don't want to be beaten by Duke."

"I think we're on the right track now," said Hurley. "We needed to get back to attacking people, and we did that tonight. We didn't want to take any chances."